On Monday, 2 July 2018, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Ljubljana Stock Exchange have signed a memorandum of cooperation regarding support programme for whose end goal is listing securities of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The signing of the memorandum was attended by important domestic and foreign stakeholders of the Slovenian capital market. They were represented at the table by Mrs Vedrana Jelušić Kašić, Regional Director of the EBRD for Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Slovakia, Mrs Simone Zeh Atanasovski, Principal at EBRD, Mrs Vinka Jelavić from the European Commission structural reform support services, financial sector and access to finance, Miloš Čas, MSc, Director of the Securities Market Agency and Aleš Ipavec, MSc, President of the Management Board of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

Aleš Ipavec, President of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange Management Board, said: "According to the statistics as many as 99.8% of the Slovenian economy is composed of small and medium-sized enterprises, meaning we welcome such projects with open hands. We believe that cooperation with the EBRD will be constructive and will bring many positive effects and we look forward to it. Since we have also recognized the fact that entrepreneurship in Slovenia is undoubtedly thriving, but perhaps it is lacking a certain strategic, financial and optimal orientation, we also launched a comparable project ourselves, which, in contrast, operates within Slovenia. The aim of both is the same for companies either at the level of Slovenia or the European Union, to ensure further growth through financing on the Exchange. Through such and comparable projects, this segment of the economy will gain a regulated capital market for the purpose of financing long-term growth."

The application deadline is 31 August 2018, and additional information, including the application form, is available on the Exchange’s website: http://www.ljse.si/cgi-bin/jve.cgi?doc=19630.